Tom Sutcliffe talks to the celebrated composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies on the eve of the premier of his tenth symphony. His latest work creates a musical structure based on architectural proportions, inspired by the 17th century architect Francesco Borromini. Waldemar Januszczak turns to the 18th century and Rococo for his inspiration, and looks at how this artistic movement spread from painting and interior design, to music and theatre. The environment, both built and natural, is key to Trevor Cox’s study of sound as he listens intently to the cacophony around us. While the psychologist Victoria Williamson explores our relationship with music, including why we’re prone to earworms, certain rhythms repeating endlessly in our heads.

What a great start to the week!

Trevor Cox has written a new book titled Sonic Wonderland: A Scientific Odyssey of Sound. By way of fantastic sonic phenomena around the world he urges us to become better listeners by paying attention to the cacophony around us. See this review in The Guardian

His blog (click here or the picture above) is a great resource and dabble into his work as an acoustic engineer. Indeed in his professional work he must filter out unwanted sounds and construct almost artificial acoustic environments, devoid of natural cause. Sonic Wonderland focuses on the acoustic environments spaces around the world that are so unique and wondrous that it would be wrong to filter them away.

His WordPress blog features regular updates and his recent post An acoustic analysis of the world’s ‘longest echo’ is a little insight into the features of the book.

More to come this year including more STUDENT WORK SOUND MAPS, SOUND WALKS, WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS and STUFF TO TAKE AWAY